


Who says that murder's not an art?

by phantomreviewer



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: (not the major character death you'd be expected. probably.), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Burning Building/Burn Victims, F/M, Hand Jobs, M/M, Major Character Injury, attempt at dystopian world building, unequal power dynamic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-25
Updated: 2014-02-25
Packaged: 2018-01-13 18:57:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1237405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phantomreviewer/pseuds/phantomreviewer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short, sharp, deadly remedy is required to cauterise the wounds running deep through the heart of the New French Republic State, and Enjolras, Citizen of the State and under Convenor of the Blacklist meets with a recently blacklisted grade undesirable tentatively named as R.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Who says that murder's not an art?

**Author's Note:**

> In very close succession I've been required to work on my dissertation, (which is on nineteenth century murder), write a paper world-building a utopia, (based on works of historical Utopian and Dystopian literature) and I've been reading Hilary Mantel's A Place Of Greater Safety & listening to the Chicago soundtrack.
> 
> These had expected, if deadly, consequences.
> 
> (Sorry.)
> 
> Title from the Chicago song _Roxie_.
> 
> (I don't think I've missed any important warnings necessary for this fic, but take heed of this being a dark dystopia.)

The office that Enjolras works in is small, befitting of a man of his political station, but he has only one window and it accepts very little light. That is what being stationed amidst the basement of politics will do. He works through far more far more candle wax than his colleagues, which only makes sense as it is he Enjolras who must put his name and his seal to the weekly announcement of the blacklist.

The blacklist represents those who are an immediate threat to the New French Republic State, and the order that accompanies the list is clear, kill on sight. 

Once there had been the name Marius Pontmercy, and Enjolras remembered an enthusiastic schoolboy. They had all once been enthusiastic schoolboys.

That had been the first time that he had hesitated before making the list public, but it was not his life in the balance and the name Pontmercy had been scored through only a week later.

He did not tell Combeferre what had happened when he was permitted to see him. Combeferre was weak, and the doctors tutted their tongues about the availability of medicines and the likelihood of recovery, all the while watching Enjolras with cunning eyes.

Combeferre was the Republic’s prisoner. Never publicly or privately stated as hostage, but should Enjolras fail to compile with the wishes of those senior to him in government, it would not be Enjolras on whom those actions were taken out on.

So he acquiesced.

He had no other pressure points.

Only Bousset of Les Amis remained. Declared undesirable by the state despite, or perhaps because of his part to play in the Revolution, Bousset had disappeared into the oppressed Parisian masses, and Enjolras tried not to think of him. Enjolras tried not to think of a time before.

He was Monsieur Enjolras, Citizen of the State and under Convenor of the Blacklist, held in perpetuity to the New French Republic State and its High Command, Monsieur Fayette. He was no longer Enjolras, with dear companions and mistress Patria. The Musain fire had gutted out his insides too.

There was a single letter to be added to the blacklist. A solitary rebus that Enjolras’ hand processed and repeated the flowing curve of, before his mind had caught up.

R.

It would not be Grantaire.

Grantaire had died in the Musain fire, alongside Feuilly, Joly and Jehan. In his dreams Enjolras saw the end of history be born amidst the flames crawling up Feuilly’s fingers and face. He wept on those nights. Wept for his friends, caught up in the fires of his own creation and in the revolution for the new world which had turned so far against them.

He needed to talk to Montparnasse. 

Montparnasse had been a catch, in his fine silks and satins. No crimes could be pinned down onto Montparnasse, never tainted by the blacklist, but he had come willingly, to work for the New French Republic State, but on condition that his contact be the fair young man in charge of publicising those to be condemned.

Montparnasse was useful.

Hold the name of Éponine Thénardier, known also as the daughter of a wolf, over his head and his dark, playful eyes would melt like fallen snow.

The blacklist was a mark for life, but Montparnasse would trade anything to remove the wolf’s child from that list.

Poacher turned gamekeeper.

The meeting with the newly blacklisted figure known only as R was arranged for the shell of the Musain café. It was no longer guarded nor kept under surveillance. Not anymore. It had been the sight of the failed Scarlet Uprising, the first and only attempt to dethrone Monsieur Fayette, led by two of the original insurgents from the time before time.

One had fallen in the struggle, but the other had been led to the guillotine and his head struck off for the good of the republic.

Bahorel and Courfeyrac were placed in unmarked graves. But Enjolras knew instantly were his friends rested.

After that blood had been washed from the walls the Musain remained standing, a burnt and bloody husk of the spirit of revolution.

Sometimes Enjolras wondered whether the empty building was kept to remind him of his part to play in the creation of the new world.

Montparnasse was silent as he stood by the charred door of the café, it had been reinforced so that those inside had no choice other than to burn.

“Walk away now and I assure you, Éponine is removed from the blacklist. But should you return when you are next summoned I can have her declared legally dead.”

Montparnasse was a necessary ally, an eye among the undesirables; the offer should have him returning. Names can always be placed back onto the blacklist. Enjolras did not enjoy toying with other people’s emotions and other people’s lives. 

But that was who he was now.

Montparnasse walked away.

Enjolras was confident that he would return.

He sat at one of the remaining chairs in the husk of what had once been his second home. He had no home but the republic now. He existed, he slept in a bed that was nominally his own and he had a place to prepare his meals and to tend to his aching heart, but he had no home.

Home was the pain in Combeferre’s eyes in the moments of lucidity before sleep.

Enjolras bracketed his fingers over the singed wood.

The possibility of the blacklisted R being Grantaire, sceptical and humorous Grantaire, who had gently decried Enjolras’ dreams as hopeless folly, was almost unreal.

His friends had burnt up and died in the fire of revolution, even Grantaire. Especially Grantaire.

The figure at the door was hunched in on itself and limping. It scarcely seemed as human to Enjolras’ eye, hissing on each alternate step forward and curled around one arm like a wounded animal.

But the laugh was Grantaire’s.

“If it isn’t Saint-Just Enjolras, Citizen of the State and under Convenor of the Blacklist, my honour to make your acquaintance.”

Grantaire stooped into a clumsy bow, and as he righted himself Enjolras saw the mire of flesh and skin that had once been Grantaire’s face. His eyes were left in fact, as dull grey and mud brown as they had ever been, and his once thick and unsightly lips were thin with scarring and pain. But beneath the ruin of Grantaire’s face remained Grantaire.

Enjolras found himself smiling.

He did not offer to help Grantaire to his seat.

“And Grantaire, undesirable, and newly blacklisted on account of suspected murder, I am charmed to make your acquaintance also.”

Held out his hand in mockery, and saw rather than felt Grantaire raise it to his ruined lips.

The rush of Grantaire’s breath against his fingers made him shudder – “I am guilty, you know, I did it with poison.” – and then Grantaire allowed his mouth to wet Enjolras’ fingers.

Grantaire wouldn’t hurt him, even now, even after everything that had come to pass. Probably.

Instead of drawing away, instead of reminiscing about the past or atoning for his past and his future, Enjolras turned his hand to touch the burnt skin of Grantaire’s cheek.

He hasn’t had human contact in years. Even if it is Grantaire.

And then Grantaire’s gnarled fingers have dug themselves into Enjolras fine hair, tight enough to hurt.

Enjolras smiles again, and Grantaire leans in closer, the two of them never breaking contact with the other.

“As beautiful as you are in my memories. More blood stained too.”

Enjolras can feel the crook of Grantaire’s smile in the air between them.

“I had not thought you have survived.” 

The dents and trenches of Grantaire’s ruined face move under his hand as he breathes, as he speaks, it feels like his very skin is heavy with something

“I had wished that you had not, and only that I could follow you. And yet you remained, so what choice did I have but to live in the shadows and remain too?”

There had never been any official record of the Musain fire, it was to be as though it never was. As though there had never been anything but the New French Republic State. That time, and place and history were all to have ended with the ascent of Fayette, and that the revolution never needed to have happened. The bodies had not been counted.

“You never did anything for my sake.”

The laugh pulling against taunt flesh hurt Enjolras to hear and to feel, and he wanted to consume it.

“Oh, that Enjolras is where you are wrong; I did everything for your sake.”

And then Enjolras has little choice in the movement that his body has elected to make. The gap between them had been bridged, and it is blood and sharp teeth that fill Enjolras’ mind. There is no republic, perhaps there never was outside of the minds of his long dying friends, and the lips of Grantaire. He can feel the heat that had blistered open their once happy lives, and he can taste the blood, iron and pain and dark, twisted promises.

Enjolras has pushed out of his own chair, and is so far into Grantaire’s that it is as though he is trying to melt into his skin, as though he longs to have been in that fire. That they can be one, ruined, melted flesh. Together.

Hands brush over, and under the expense of rough fabric. Grantaire had turned soft since he had last known him, but he searches for where he has gone hard. 

“How much for your services?” 

Grantaire is gasping against Enjolras’ hand, and Enjolras remembers what it is to feel power.

“I have followed you into hell once and came out alive; to kill for you will be payment enough.”

That had not been why this meeting had come about, neither consequence, but his grip tightens on Grantaire as Grantaire pants into his ear.

“But what about this?”

With a twist of his hand Grantaire buckles in pain, and Enjolras feels his eyes well up at the pain emitting from the roots of his hair.

A life under his hand. A heartbeat. Enjolras has not felt so alive since he forgot how to feel.

Grantaire's twisted, melted smile is wicked and pulling away from Enjolras’ hair he tightens his grip on his cravat and dips down, when he draws his mouth down to his shoulder and back up his teeth are stained with Enjolras' blood. 

The pain is sweet.

“This I will take for free, although I would kill a thousand times for the privilege. “

And he would, and Enjolras would let him. Would ask him too and would ask him to lay the bodies at his feet. He might ask for the bodies. But to see, Monsieur Fayette, strung by the cravat to the flagpole of the New French Republic State headquarters would be worth far more. 

And with it, Grantaire sighs, hideous and satisfied against Enjolras’ hand.

Enjolras had been one of those who after the Republic had sprung into true, lethal blossom, and the health, weight and temperament of its suitable citizens had been catalogued, who had been told no. His fire was suitable for breathing life into this new world, but would not be needed to repopulate it. There would be nothing else to fight, after all. Biological rights were rescinded, and he was cast back into the republic, for dedication to the state, as opposed to the self. He could never marry, never have children, and never tend a life that was not in service to the New French Republic State.

He wipes the excess of pleasure back onto Grantaire’s filthy trousers, extracting his hand and smiles. He is still all but sat in Grantaire’s lap but that is of little concern.

Words are exchange in quiet hisses and starts, as though betrayal is just around the corner. (It is.) Discretion is key; it is Combeferre’s life that Enjolras threatens to risk. Not his own. And not Grantaire’s. They both know how the alignment of state is not in their favour, but Combeferre must be kept safe. 

Enjolras’ fingertips pinch the ridged skin of Grantaire’s face and he trusts in Grantaire’s oath to Combeferre’s life. Grantaire swears by Enjolras’ life too. Enjolras does not echo the sentiment. Grantaire is blacklisted, his life is already forfeit. Risen up out of the gutter he owes his continued survival to Enjolras’ clemency.

A plan is put together in cinders and ashes.

They seal the deal with a kiss that is more blood and saliva than it is of any affectionate emotion, but the fire stirring in Enjolras is more than the flames of approaching war. He can finally hear the drums on the horizon once again. Or Grantaire's heart beating a tattoo. A call to arms. A call to Enjolras.

They have a corrupt system to tear down from the inside with politics and poison, and they're going to be vicious.

**Author's Note:**

> (I mean, it’s a dystopia, so after a fleeting success they get caught. Grantaire is tortured in front of Enjolras then executed. Then Enjolras is forced to publically sign himself onto the blacklist and Combeferre is wheeled out of confinement to watch his only friend left in the world guillotined, and Monsieur Fayette continues unopposed as High Command of the New French Republic State, but hey, if you want to imagine that Enjolras and Grantaire singlehandedly stage a coup against the corrupt French Republic and succeed…)
> 
> I made it my mission to include as many of the most unsettling elements of dystopian history and literature as I could in such a short space, state control of media, eugenics, political control, state sanctioned punishment, the end of history and the segregation of society, among others. What do you mean my degree gives me nightmares?


End file.
